Share this story

British immigration officers have been legally allowed to hack into refugees and asylum seekers' phones since 2013, it has emerged.

Over the past three years, immigration officers have had the power to hack into phones and computers belonging to refugees and asylum seekers, as well as plant listening devices in a home, car, or detention centre, the Home Office confirmed to the Observer over the weekend.

The power to “property interference, including interference with equipment” was granted through an amendment to the Police Act 1997.

A Home Office official told the newspaper that the snooping powers had been used to prevent "serious crime," such as supplying of counterfeit travel documents. It's not entirely clear whether the contents of refugees and asylum seekers' electronic devices had ever been used to help examine their asylum cases, however.

Further Reading

Immigration officers "may only use the power to investigate and prevent serious crime which relates to an immigration or nationality offence, and have done so since 2013," said Home Office minister James Brokenshire.

A briefing document from home secretary Theresa May's department—cited in the Observer's report—apparently stated that the aim of granting the hacking powers was "to ensure that immigration officers can deploy a full range of investigative techniques to deal effectively with all immigration crime."

The revelation has prompted a backlash from civil right activists, who accused officials of discrimination against some of the most vulnerable members of society.

The news comes as parliamentary scrutiny of May's controversial draft Investigatory Powers Bill—colloquially dubbed a Snoopers' Charter—is set to continue this week with more committee hearings. The Tory government's proposed law would—among other things—knit together state surveillance powers, mandate ISPs to keep users' Web browsing data for a year, and allow for bulk equipment interference warrants.

Share this story

Andrii Degeler
Andrii is a contributing reporter at Ars Technica UK, covering a wide range of topics from policy to hardware and crowdfunding. He holds a master's degree in Journalism from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Emailandrii@proceed.to//Twitter@adegeler